Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Healthy Habits Kitchen for Easy, Nutritious Meals at Home

I'm lucky (or unlucky?) enough to have plenty of time to cook. When I want to make a complex meal, I can take my time shopping and prepping, chopping and assembling. But I realize that I'm in the minority in this, and that a lot of people struggle just to put something hot on the table every night. And far too often, the things that are easy and quick to make are far from healthy.

Enter Healthy Habits Kitchen in Wellesley. Started in 2007 by Sue Schochet, Healthy Habits Kitchen aims to provide nutritious meals that (mostly) take under 30 minutes to cook. Every meal is packaged to go, with ingredients already portioned so you can just throw them together without too much work. The above meal, Triple M Chicken, took half an hour and almost no thought to make, and I loved every bite.

All of the meals are created by Sue and her team, then sent to a nutritionist for evaluation. Each serving contains under 400 calories, less than 30% fat, and a maximum of 800mg of sodium. The menu changes monthly, so there's always plenty of variety at Healthy Habits Kitchen.

There are a few options for getting meals from Healthy Habits Kitchen. You can schedule an assembly time, where you can assemble a whole meal, using the portion-sized containers in the kitchen. Alternatively, you can just pick up frozen meals for an extra $1 per meal (this is the option that most customers use). Healthy Habits Kitchen is also a part of the Natick farmers market on Saturdays, where you can pick up frozen meals (you can guarantee they'll have what you want by placing an order ahead of time). The kitchen can even be used for small parties, where a group of friends can spend time assembling their meals with each other over BYOB wine and provided snacks.

You know, even if you have enough time to do all your meal planning and prep on your own, it's nice to have someone do the work from time to time and to try new recipes without too much hassle. It's also great to know that you have a whole meal in the freezer that can be put together in no time.